First Bio Toilets Rail Corridor Launched in Tamil Nadu

Today railways Minister Suresh Prabhu launched train with zero toilet discharge on railway tracks. The 114 km long Rameswaram-Manamadurai stretch is equipped with bio toilet that ensures zero toilet discharge on railway tracks. About 10 passenger trains that has 286 coaches in this section are provided with bio toilets said the sources.

The railway ministry aims to provide 30000 bio-toilets across the nation in 2016-17. The minister said the installing bio toilet benefits a lot. Initiating this will largely brings down maintenance cost.

The ministry is creating green rail corridors across the nation with zero human waste discharge on land. These bio-toilets collect human waste in tanks and decomposed using bacteria. The Ministry had provided more than 15000 bio toilets for 4000 coaches on last year.

It has plans to provide bio toilets for all coaches by September 2019. The work is underway for about 35 trains across various parts in the country. Nearly 1,110 coaches works are on progress. The ministry had so far fitted 7000 bio toilets in last 3 months and aims to fit for 30,000 bio toilets in a year.

The minister requested Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha for joint venture to proceed on this project. He said other southern states Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh had agreed for Joint venture with railways.

On the inaugural event, minister also stated about the high speed network of trains. He specified the speed of trains to increase from 110 kmph to 160 kmph in Chennai-Bengaluru and New Delhi-Chennai sector. He said the first train using Talgo coaches with full load capacity with 180 kmph is completed successfully.

Meanwhile upgraded Wi-Fi service begins in Chennai Central station, Tamil Nadu. On Sunday, Railway Minister also launched high speed internet of about 1 Gbps, the 10 times higher than the previous that had 100 Mbps. With Google as technology partner the project was upgraded which already has free Wi-Fi service for about 30 minutes in 100Mbps.